Rotherham abuse trial: Jury retires to consider verdicts

From the Sheffield Telegraph 

A jury has started considering its verdicts in the trial of seven people accused of playing roles in a Rotherham child grooming ring.The jury was sent out on Wednesday morning in the case, which started in early December.For two months Sheffield Crown Court has heard allegations that teenage girls were repeatedly raped, beaten, passed between abusers and used as prostitutes. 

The offences are alleged to have occurred between 1987 and 2003.

The jury was told that one girl was locked in a house for weeks as she was forced to have sex with a succession of men.The court also heard that a 12-year-old girl was forced to perform sex acts with a group of men in a car after she was picked up from a children’s home, another girl was called a “white bitch and trash” after she was forced to have oral sex, and the mother of one alleged victim was threatened with her house being firebombed. 

As she sent the jury out to consider their verdicts, Judge Sarah Wright told them they should seek to reach unanimous verdicts.

Arshid Hussain, 40, Qurban Ali, 53, Majid Bostan, 37, Sajid Bostan, 38, Basharat Hussain, 39, Karen MacGregor, 58, and Shelley Davies, 40, deny a range of charges.